Anthropic profitability : the startup behind Claude projects $10.9 billion in revenue in Q2 2026, for its first operating profit in history.
Figures that redefine generative AI
Anthropic’s trajectory was not clearly evident a year ago. This Wednesday, May 21, 2026, the Wall Street Journal and CNBC simultaneously revealed that the Californian startup has communicated spectacular financial projections to its investors for the second quarter of 2026. The company anticipates $10.9 billion in revenue for the June quarter, more than double the first quarter which closed at $4.8 billion. This jump of more than 127% in just a few months is a performance few tech companies have achieved on this scale.
Expected operating profit stands at $559 million for the same quarter. This figure includes model training costs but excludes stock-based compensation. The precision of this accounting definition is important: it signals that Anthropic wants to be read unambiguously by its investors at a time when a new fundraising round is underway. This data was transmitted as part of the current funding round, during which the company seeks to surpass the valuation of its rival OpenAI.
Claude Code, the engine of extraordinary growth
The origin of this surge is identifiable. The revenue increase is largely driven by the growing adoption of artificial intelligence tools in businesses, particularly for software development and cybersecurity tasks. Claude Code, Anthropic’s programming assistant, has become in a few months one of the most profitable products in the sector. Available in general release since May 2025, it reached one billion dollars in annualized revenue by November 2025, then 2.5 billion in February 2026. Enterprise clients account for more than half of its revenue, including Netflix, Spotify, KPMG, L’Oréal, and Salesforce.
The number of clients spending over $100,000 per year on Claude has multiplied by seven in one year. Two years ago, barely a dozen organizations spent over a million dollars annually; today, there are over 500. Eight Fortune 10 companies now use Claude. This data, published by Anthropic as part of its February 2026 funding round, describes structural enterprise adoption, not just a fleeting trend.
Krishna Rao, Chief Financial Officer of Anthropic, said in an official statement: « Whether it is entrepreneurs, startups, or the world’s largest enterprises, the message from our customers is the same: Claude is increasingly becoming critical to how businesses work. »
Profitability to be put into perspective in the long term
However, caution is advised. This growth rate exceeds the historical peaks of Zoom, Google, and Facebook in their time, and the profitability threshold is reached earlier than expected. But Anthropic itself tempers the enthusiasm. The company indicated that it does not anticipate full-year profitability before at least 2028, due to massive computing expenditures planned to support its infrastructure needs.
The Wall Street Journal first revealed these projections, followed by Reuters, which examined Anthropic’s computing commitments. Both sources confirm that the company may not remain profitable for the rest of the year due to upcoming training and infrastructure costs. In other words, Q2 2026 represents a window of profitability, not necessarily the beginning of a sustainable era. It is a snapshot of a company whose growth temporarily absorbs its costs at a specific point in its cycle.
To fuel this growth, Anthropic has notably concluded an agreement with Amazon for an investment of up to $25 billion and access to 5 gigawatts of computing capacity for training and deploying its Claude models. A separate agreement with Google and Broadcom is set to provide similar additional capacity next year.
Facing OpenAI, an intensifying rivalry
The simultaneous announcements on May 20, 2026, are not insignificant. On the same day, OpenAI made public its S-1 filing, the first formal step towards an IPO awaited by the markets. Anthropic, for its part, is negotiating a new funding round that could value the company above $900 billion, surpassing OpenAI’s valuation of $852 billion in its last funding round in March 2026.
The San Francisco-based company is also exploring the possibility of an IPO as early as October. The pace is therefore accelerating on both fronts. For Anthropic, showing a first profitable quarter a few months before a potential IPO is a strong signal to the markets: generative AI profitability is not a distant promise; it is beginning to materialize.
The company was founded in 2021 by a group of researchers and executives who left OpenAI, and it is now best known for its Claude family of models, including Claude Code, its particularly popular programming assistant. In less than five years, Anthropic has gone from a dissident startup to a credible contender for global AI leadership. The first operating profit in its history, even if temporary, marks a milestone in this trajectory. To be closely monitored when the official Q2 2026 results are published.